The woman kept laughing through it all.

“You think you’re alone now, Maria?” she rasped. “Soon you’ll learn what it’s like to truly be alone.”

Maria opened her eyes.

The woman was gone. Above her, the sun was shining bright and hot. The ground beneath her was wet and scratchy.

Maria sat up slowly. It was getting harder to tell when she was dreaming and when she was awake.

She was outside, but there was no lightning or rain. Nothing but that unrelenting sun.

She was on the soccer field. The scratchy feeling was the just-mown grass, damp from the rain the night before. To her left was the lake, dark and still. She turned her head until it was outside her field of vision.

She wasn’t at a gravesite. There wasn’t any old woman.

She was in the real world. She was safe.

Safe.

Maria didn’t know what “safe” meant anymore.

She’d thought Brandon would be safe.

No. She wasn’t supposed to think about Brandon.

Not about how he’d looked by the lake.

Not about how he’d looked at her that day in the language lab. That mix of pity and revulsion when he’d seen what Maria really was.

That was all in the past. She was moving on.

Wait. What was she doing sleeping on the soccer field?

Oh, what did it matter.

Maria climbed to her feet and started back toward the house. She kept her head to the side so she wouldn’t have to see the stupid lake.

She fished her phone out of her pocket. Twelve texts, all from Lily. Maria started to text her back but gave up and put her phone away. She didn’t know what to say.

Maria passed the spot where Delilah had fallen. She remembered how she’d looked that night. Her glassy eyes just before she started to climb the stairs. Her bloody hair on the grass.

Delilah was asleep now. Lying in bed, dreaming peaceful dreams. No one expecting her to do anything. It must be wonderful. Maria longed for that kind of sleep.

Maria glanced at the window to their room. She could see Lily inside, but Lily didn’t see her. She was pacing back and forth on her crutches. It amazed Maria how fast Lily could move when she was determined.

Maria could just go back to the soccer field. Lie down again. Watch the day turn into night, then day again.

Instead, she trudged up the stairs and down the hall. Lily yanked open the door to their room before Maria could even reach for the knob.

She looked beautiful. She was wearing her vintage white linen dress with the poufy skirt. Her hair was out of its usual braid, piled up on top of her head in carefully messy curls that must’ve taken her an entire can of hairspray to get exactly right.